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Saturday, April 21, 2012

36th Rant: How the Right owns talk radio

In my last editorial, I mentioned how we needed an online Social Media Tea Party. In the various methods used, it seemed like I had neglected one other main form of social media. That form is online radio. There are a lot of online radio stations and talk show hosts out there, from those who are nationally known like Tony Katz (who I consider to be “The Godfather of online radio” because he is doing for online radio what Rush Limbaugh had done for AM/FM/Satellite Radio), Dana Loesch (who, though on a terrestrial FM station out of St. Louis, MO, I consider to be in this genre based on her involvement with the Tea Party), Larry O’Connor, Hugh Hewitt, and others, to those relative unknowns like Stephen Vandergast (The voice of BlogTalk Radio), Tessler, (The dean of BlogTalk Radio), Annie the Radio Chick (aka Southern Sense), G-Ski Rocks, Dana Smearman, Toni Walsh, Michelle Ray, Kira Davis, and others. In this online radio station and talk show host genre you could even include those outside of BlogTalk Radio, like my good friends at the Texas Or Busted Media Empire, Justin Kendall, Titan 92, NJ Libertarian, Rob Alloy IV, PrarieDog SD, and even Texas or Busted himself.

What I am getting at is that online radio (and I will even take it one step further and say Talk Radio as a whole) is one method that we as Conservatives are good at. Why? Let us take two hypothetical liberals: John Doe the liberal columnist for the New Yan Times and Joe Schnook of a liberal talk show based out of New Yan City. John runs a column which is featured in 500 papers across the country and Joe is a host of a talk show which is heard on 500 stations across the country. They both say the same thing in the column and radio show daily. Both of which are listened to or read by millions of people nationwide, with differing results. Liberals applaud their words, and there are many other listeners and readers who are of the opinion that what they had heard and read is the biggest bunch of bovine excrement they have heard in a long time. But there is a vast difference.

What is that difference you ask? The columnist goes into his cushy office and lights up a cigar while his email and newspaper office box is filled with letters of outrage as well as columns and articles sent by readers with proof that what he says is totally debunked by research and facts. However, he has a secretary which screens every letter and email he receives, and as such he does not read the hate mail that comes in. The talk show host, on the other hand, is in a dilemma. He is seeing the phones light up and has to defend his position against the same arguments which the readers to the columnist had sent via email and postal mail.

You see, the columnist has an isolation which allows him to protect his image as a genius, facing challenges only when he wants to. Now the talk show host does not have that liberty. He crumbles under the onslaught of the callers with a different viewpoint and argument. At the end of the day both the columnist and the talk show host go home. The columnist with a sense of pride that his word is out there and he had not seen any contrarian response because of his secretary. The talk show host with a sense of humiliation, having limped to the end os the show being battered and bloodied under the crushing stones of fact and logic.

Oh sure the liberal talk show host might not have to tell his producer not to put any calls on the air, but with all of the talking points of the left about how evil America and Conservatives are, as well as how individualism is not the way to go, they might have a difficult time filling up the remaining two hours and thirty minutes to two hours and forty-five seconds of their show.

Ladies and gentlemen, talk radio is one social media venue where we as Conservatives own and control the narrative. There are many ways to get involved in talk radio both online and offline. Online, you can tune into good shows like this one, like The TPZ Forum, like Mitchell and Ray, like Socialism is not an Option, like The Conservative Watchtower, like NoBamanation, like Soldiers of Patriotism, like Women Patriots, like Live and Direct with G-Ski Rocks and the Captain, like TB-TV and it’s companion the Contingency Show, and call in to participate. Offline you can call into your local talk shows or even to good national syndicated shows like Rush, like Boortz, like Levin, like Savage, like Hannity, and call in to participate. You can also plug your favorite shows both online and offline via the other social media venues I mentioned last week. Online you can also host your own show via UStream, LiveStream, and even right here on BlogTalk Radio. We HAVE the edge, we OWN the narrative as far as talk radio goes. Let us do what we can to maintain that edge, to keep owning that narrative.